Sonya Lee is a Korean-Canadian filmmaker and National Geographic Explorer dedicated to stories that intersect science, nature, people and culture. She often works in ocean stories to engage new audiences in ocean issues. She is the recipient of the 2025 Jackson Wild Rising Star Award.

With her production company, Plankton Productions, Sonya is currently focusing on projects that combine her love of food, her Korean culture and ocean conservation. Our Ocean Table (3 × 22” doc-series) co-produced with Jugaad Sisters for TELUS Originals will be released on Telus Optik and CBC Gem May 1, 2026 and was a finalist in the Jackson Wild Media Awards 2025. Her next documentary about Korean raw soy-marinated crab and fisheries in South Korea is supported by the National Geographic Society.

Her most recent CBC Short Doc, A Special Little Fish, is about a camerawoman’s journey of balancing career and new motherhood while filming an endemic lamprey species in an urban creek on Vancouver Island.

As a freelance producer-director, her work on ocean stories have been for CBC, PBS, ARTE, and Love Nature. Her film with River Road Films, Jawsome: Canada’s Great White Sharks, aired on CBC’s The Nature of Things in January 2024 and streaming on CBC Gem in Canada. It has been nominated by the Canadian Academy for Best Science and Nature Documentary or Series for the 2025 Canadian Screen Awards. Retitled, Sharks of the North, the film was part of National Geographic Channel's Sharkfest 2025 and is streaming on Disney+ and Hulu in the US & internationally.

With over a decade of experience in science communication, Sonya was previously the Science Producer for the National Film Board of Canada’s Ocean School project, producing over 100 education media pieces including documentaries, VR/AR experiences, and multimedia interactives intended for school audiences.

She is passionate about community-collaborative filmmaking and ethical science communication, leading workshops nationally and internationally. She was a mentor for the 2024 NEWF Congress in South Africa and practices knowledge sharing with the NEWF community. In 2022, she was Media Faculty for OceanX’s Young Explorers Program aboard the Ocean Xplorer.

Sonya is a 2024 National Geographic Explorer, 2023 Documentary Organization of Canada Breakthrough participant, 2021 Jackson Wild Media Lab Fellow, and a 2022 Global Career Accelerator participant with the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers.

Sonya serves on the Advisory Council of Jackson Wild.

She has a background in Marine Biology and International Development Studies and you will find her in the ocean as an avid diver and fish nerd.

Speaking, Workshops and Panels

2026 | Wildscreen | Science in Storytelling | Speaker

2026 | National Geographic Education | Explorer Classroom Storytelling Series | Speaker

2025 | Jackson Wild Summit | Entertaining Nature: Breaking out of the documentary box | Panelist

2025 | National Geographic Society | Leadership Workshop Canada | Presenter

2025 | National Geographic Storytellers Summit | Works in Progress | Presenter

2024 | World Congress of Science and Factual Producers | Redefining Co-Production with(in) Africa | Session Co-Producer

2024 | NEWF Fellows Summit and Congress | Mentor

2023 | Jackson Wild Summit | Community Co-Creation Panel | Producer and Moderator

2023 | IMPAC 5 | Ocean Literacy Dialogues Reaching mass Audiences | Panelist

2022 | OceanX | Young Explorers Program | Media Faculty

2021 | Canadian Ocean Literacy Coalition | Ocean Decade Campaign Workshop | Presenter

Fellowships

2026 | National Geographic | Field Ready Program

2023 | Documentary Organization of Canada Northwest - Breakthrough Program

2023 | Story Money Impact - Pod Fellow

2022 | World Congress of Science and Factual Producers- Tier 1 Emerging Producer

2021 | 2021 Jackson Wild Media Lab Fellow

2021 | Reelworld Producer Accelerator Program

Sonya is based in Victoria, Vancouver Island, Canada and is a guest on the unceded traditional homelands of the lək̓ʷəŋən speaking peoples, the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.